“Cei care cred că a citi înseamnă o fugă de realitate se situează la polul opus adevărului: a citi înseamnă a te plasa în prezenţa realului în starea sa cea mai concentrată - ceea ce, în mod bizar, este mai puţin îngrozitor decît să ai de-a face cu permanentele lui diluări.”
“Нещастието си има и добрите страни: вкъщи вече разполагах със стаята си и с правото да чета. Никога не бях чела толкова, колкото в този период: поглъщах книгите както за да компенсирам дългото нечетене, така и за да мога да посрещна приближаващата криза. Тези, които смятат, че четенето е бягство, са много далеч от истината: да четеш, означава да се сблъскаш с реалността в най-концентрирания й вид, което, колкото и да е странно, е по-малко ужасяващо от това да си имаш работа с размитите й форми.”
“Quanto a me, le storie di vittime e carnefici mi irritavano oltre misura. Forse per questa ragione non avevo mai avuto un amico o un'amica: avevo visto troppe volte, al liceo e altrove, il nobile nome dell'amicizia accostato a oscure schiavitù inaccettabili, a sistemici dispositivi di umiliazione, a nauseanti sottomissioni, fino a comportamenti da capro espiatorio.
Avevo dell'amicizia una visione sublime: se non era alla Oreste e Pilade, Achille e Patroclo, Montaigne e La Boétie, perché tu sei proprio tu, e io sono proprio io, allora non la volevo. Se lasciava spazio alla minima bassezza, alla minima rivalità, all'ombra di un' invidia, all'ombra di un'ombra, la respingevo a pedate.”
“That was what university was: thinking you were going to open yourself up to a universe, and meeting nobody.”
“I had always been alone and wouldn't have minded if it had been a matter of choice. It never had been. I dreamed of being integrated, if only to give myself the luxury of subsequently disintegrating.”
“I had this notion of passionate love: if it ever happened to me, I wouldn't be able to imagine a moment's separation. What could you bear to have between the loved one and yourself, apart from the blade of a sword?”
“If I had been deceived, it was because, for a moment, I had loved. 'I am one of those who love, not those who hate,' declares Sophocles' Antigone. No one has ever said anything more beautiful.”
“Încă de mică pierdusem şirul fetiţelor cărora le oferisem inima mea şi care nu o voiseră.”
“In actual fact, creatures like Sabine and myself were the guilty ones: rather than approaching their kin and comforting one another, they loved beyond their means - they needed individuals a thousand miles from their own complexes, they needed Christas, radiant and seductive personalities. And then they were astonished that their friendships turned out badly, as though anything like that could possibly work, a panther with a mouse, a shark with a sardine.”
“[Herbert] Hoover, had he been challenged with the overpowering implausibility of his notion that economic life is a race that is won by the ablest runner, would have had a ready answer from his own biography: had he not started in life as a poor orphan and worked in the mines for a pittance, and had he not become first a millionaire and then President of the United States? There are times when nothing is more misleading than personal experience, and the man whose experience has embraced only success is likely to be a forlorn and alien figure when his whole world begins to fail.”
“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”
“You’re not as cold as you pretend to be,’ she said. ‘I think your doors open in different places, that’s all. Most people just don’t know how to get in to you. They knock and they knock where the door is supposed to be, but it’s a blank wall. But you’re there. I’ve watched you. I’ve seen you do some awfully cold things warmly and some warm things coldly. Or does that make sense?”
“The more that science unravels about the wonder of life and the universe, the more i am in are of it. the beauty and wonder of the universe and all that surrounds us offers proof of God. I like that idea”
“I am an instrument in the shape/ of a woman trying to translate pulsations/ into images for the relief of the body/ and the reconstruction of the mind.”
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